Frameline is thrilled to partner with guest bloggers from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire during this year's festival! We've invited students from the LGBTQA Studies: San Francisco Travel Seminar at UWEC to share their experiences of Frameline and their thoughts on San Francisco's queer community. As they attend Frameline and experience San Francisco, they will be creating LGBTQ-themed documentaries, as well as vetting films for their second Eau Queer Film Festival in the fall. For more information about the contributors, click here: http://blog.frameline.org/2011/06/biography
"My experience in viewing this film was entirely eye opening. I knew about the importance of women’s labor and activism during WWII, but never contemplated the relationships that were behind it. As a straight woman, I frequently forget to leave my mind open to the other moments of history that are not so widely visible and apparent. Just because it’s not taught in a history book and blatantly presented to me by our censored, primarily homophobic educational system, doesn’t mean it wasn’t an integral part of our past. In fact, as I am finding from our tours and moments in these films, LGBT roles in history have always been huge, but lying beneath the surface, just barely covered by the water our society seems to have tried to drown it in (and failed, I am glad to say as our world becomes more progressive about portraying it)." - Brianna Mueller
"The flow of this film could be difficult for some to follow because of its backward nature. However, I loved that aspect of the film. It kept me guessing the whole time about the characters and what was it that made them the way they were in the beginning of the film- a process that fascinates me in general. The Night Watch revealed, bit-by-bit, events and environments in the characters lives that changed them." - Katy Cobb
"I was enthralled with the idea of a ‘Mystery/Thriller’ within queer cinema. Typically, I am naturally drawn to literature within this genre. The colors on screen coordinated perfectly with the atmosphere being portrayed. The characters’ 1940s lives were consumed by gray, black, and white, with the occasional spurt of blue, yellow, or green. The stand out color of the film was the color red, which was used to set the tone of fear and death that was overwhelming during this time period. Also, it was apparent by the expertise in lighting that the production aptitude was quite talented. Dreary natural lighting was used to keep the frame cool, warm tones were only used in love scenes. Side lighting prevailed throughout the film, which I equated with the element of mystery; keeping the audience intrigued, and somewhat in the dark, so to speak." - Lindsay Miklya